Obama Expected to Name Education Secretary on Tuesday

By Philip Rucker
President-elect Barack Obama will name Chicago public schools superintendent Arne Duncan as his secretary of education at a news conference tomorrow at a Chicago elementary school, a senior Democratic official said.

Duncan, 44, is chief executive of Chicago Public Schools, where he has steered one of the nation's largest school districts since 2001. A graduate of Harvard University, Duncan was raised in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood, not far from Obama's home, and is a longtime friend and basketball partner of Obama's. Duncan is a former director of Ariel Education Initiative, which creates educational opportunities for inner-city youth in Chicago's South Side. He began working for Chicago Public Schools in 1998.

Obama plans to introduce Duncan tomorrow morning at Dodge Renaissance Academy, a Chicago elementary school that the two visited together in 2005.

What happened to the comment that I posted earlier? In it I said that I was disappointed with the nomination. That, for education, it's business (underline business) as usual. It's now wonder that education suffers so much. We keep picking people who know nothing about what works in our schools. We'd rather put our money on the management of schools and not on practices that have a positive effect on teaching and learning. You can't convince me, with this nomination, that we truly care whether our young people are taught to think, to question, to inquire, to read for meaning, and to write with a voice. Too bad. Too bad.

I CAN TELL BY READING THESE COMMENTS THAT EDUCATION IS A NATIONAL SECURITY PROBLEM. WE HAVE DUMMIED DOWN. MANY OF OUR COUNTRYMEN HAVEN'T A CLUE WHAT IS HAPPENING. THEY THINK WE HAVEN'T BEEN ATTACKED BECAUSE BUSH KEPT US SAFE WITH TORTURE.

HOW SAD. MOST OF THE TERROR IN THIS COUNTRY IS DONE BY US, IT IS THE ECONOMY, HEALTH CARE, HOMELESSNESS, CRIME, HUNGER, JOBLESSNESS AND MUCH MORE AND IT ALL HAPPENED BEFORE OBAMA BECOMES PRESIDENT.
ASK YOUSELF WHO BENEFITED FROM THIS WAR.

"Actually, I believe that the FEDERAL Dept. of Education is un-Constitutional. Maybe if we got rid of the federal scheme and unfunded mandates, States would finally be free to find those innovative 21st century solutions?"

Extra Constitutional perhaps?
It's an interesting question.

As a parent with a couple of bright young knuckleheads, I have to say that the right to education is unappreciated while the privilege of education is undervalued.

BTW,

My oldest is now in the US Navy Sea Cadet Corps. They have very high standards for school grades and program participation. And it opens doors to real experience with Navy course work and leadership training.

It will be a privilege for him to learn with our professional Navy and take that experience with him to University - IF he can meet their standards as a high school cadet.

My point is that the modern military has high educational standards. Good public education is mandatory to operate and develop our high-tech defense capabilities.

But then I'm just a bad old liberal whose son might be interested in a career of service to his country. What am I to do!

A white rendition of Rod Paige, the first Walker Bush Education Secretary, though not holder of a doctorate in football, Arne Duncan is being recommended as a "great choice" by the current Education Secretary Margaret Spellings. Plus ca change.

Actually, I believe that the FEDERAL Dept. of Education is un-Constitutional. Maybe if we got rid of the federal scheme and unfunded mandates, States would finally be free to find those innovative 21st century solutions?

I eagerly await hearing from our new Secretary of Education. But I am not optimistic that he will be any more insightful or effective than those who have preceded him. I fear that he, like other establishment education leaders, will fail to acknowledge the proverbial elephant in the room: the model of secondary school education that continues to persist in this country (and which increasingly is permeating down to the elementary level) is, as Bill Gates has correctly stated, "obsolete."

Before the change we really need in public education can emerge, we must acknowledge the huge, increasing disconnect that exists between this outdated secondary school model, to which even the best public and private schools cling, and the realities of today’s world. In short, the future of our children – and our nation – depends on the introduction of a genuinely new model of secondary education, designed in and fit for the 21st century.

By many measures much of the rest of the industrialized world has caught or passed by us in secondary education. The good news, however, is that those who are beating us in the education race are doing so with the same old model we use; they too haven’t moved into the 21st century. So, if we act now to take the initiative to create a new, 21st century secondary school model, then our high school graduates can once again become the best educated in the world. Thus, the leadership we need from President Obama and Secretary of Education Duncan must include moving us beyond our myopic focus on attempts (noble and otherwise) to fix that which clearly needs replacing.